Why we hate what we do not understand

Are you one of those people who at times feel confused about the direction of your community and society as a total? Do you ever feel bewildered about a path chosen based on a majority decision, whilst you have no better alternative at hand? Do you ever feel like you are complaining too much, yet you do not see the sense in a certain behaviour or in following a path just for the sake of it?

Well, welcome to my world! This is nothing out of the ordinary and yes, you do not need to feel like you are a trouble maker if you choose to not agree with everything you encounter (how you deal with it will establish if you are a trouble maker or not).

I often wonder in what way we have lost our ways, as in the ways of our ancestors. I strongly believe that we are a society of technology-hungry followers that have lost their sense of self and a sense of direction. We have come to learn many amazing things as a species and many complicated discoveries and inventions can be credited to us. That in itself is amazing and we could look at it as a blessing. Yet, I strongly feel that the majority of humans have given themselves up to specialists, experts, scientists and other (often) self-indulgent ‘leaders’.

The question that we have to ask ourselves is: Have we lost our individual capacity to make decisions and our spiritual capacity of understanding ourselves as part of our environment?

I often wonder who I could be or should I say: who I really am? I feel that we are so much less of our potential self and yet we gain so little in the trade for technological progress. What have we really gained from the days of early human settlements?

Sure, one could argue, that it is easy to forget all the grapes of our progress over the last ten thousands of years whilst we enjoy their luxuries. A flushing toilet is an amazing invention, true, but has the availability of computers in most households and the www brought us the anticipated spare time? Are we all more involved in discovering our inner beauty or spiritual enlightenment? Or do we rather find ourselves trapped in having less spare time and feeling more stressed?

Courtesy of National Geographic, Photographer: James L. Stanfield

On the one hand I feel terrified by the thought that we might have lost a lot of our wisdom that we have had in past centuries. Just look at the treatment and loss of status that the older generation is experiencing today as opposed to past generations. Sure one could argue that people would have said that even 500 or 2000 years ago, but it is indisputable that a senior in the year 1808 would have experienced a higher status within his/her family than today.

The older generation was responsible to pass on the knowledge of our ancestors as well as being a person of status simply because of their age. This has been lost and we now find a rather abandoned generation of grand parents that have aged and outlived their usefulness as a tax provider and major consumer.

Have we lost the connection to our roots?

Why is it that we destroy all the plants that we refer to as weed and consider them unworthy? Yet these plants are strong and resilient to lack of water and excessive or lack of sun shine. These plants are born survivors, yet throughout my life 99.9% of people have been telling me that they were useless, a pest and needed to be ripped out.

At the same time we spent large amounts of time pampering plants that in many cases are not even edible. Why destroy a strong plant and pamper a weaker one? Is that not in itself against nature? Does that not contradict evolution in its core?

I recommend learning about the usefulness of weeds and becoming aware that these plants are easier to maintain and I assume in many cases very healthy as well. I assume that a plant that is more resilient and at the same time edible will pass some of these resilient properties on to the consumer (as in eater). The healthier and stronger the food that we eat the better should be the impact on our health! (A rule that would have to apply in most cases)

I recommend this web site on further reading on edible weeds and would appreciate your thoughts and feed back.